


Glowing

by CrimeAlley1048



Category: Batfamily - Fandom, Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 21:30:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14941739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimeAlley1048/pseuds/CrimeAlley1048
Summary: Tim and Damian talk some stuff out over tea. WARNING: This fic directly discusses depression and past attempts at suicide. I would call it a work about coping and recovery, but please consider your own mental health before reading it.-Amy





	Glowing

“You look like shit,” said Damian, as he set a pot of tea and a stack of cups on the kitchen table. Tim ignored him and focussed on his screen instead. He wasn’t in the mood.

Damian didn’t seem to get the hint. “Something wrong?”

“I’m fine.”

“Grayson’s outside with Father, if you want to talk about it.”

“They’re busy.”

“You could talk to me,” Damian suggested.

“Why would I do that?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

Tim pulled his laptop screen closed so he could give Damian the eye. If Damian noticed, he didn’t let on— just stared back like he was actually expecting an answer.

“You hate me,” Tim reminded him.

“Yes,” Damian agreed, probably on pure instinct because he immediately backtracked. “Well not— never mind. That’s not important.”

“You tried to kill me!”

“Oh big deal,” said Damian, crossing his arms. “So did you.”

Oh. That was… fair, honestly, but Tim wasn’t prepared to concede the point.

“That’s really not the same thing,” he pointed out, “so I don’t think—”

“I _knew_ it,” Damian interrupted, jumping out of his seat. “Grayson! Get in here! I—”

Tim caught his arm on his way out the door and pulled him back into the kitchen. “Dick,” he said slowly, looking Damian in the eye, “does not need to hear about that.”

Damian’s looked from Tim’s face, down to Tim’s hand locked around his wrist, back to Tim’s face again, apparently debating whether he wanted to start a physical fight. In the end, he didn’t— just narrowed his eyes until Tim dropped his wrist.

“Sit,” Tim said, gesturing to the table.

Damian sat.

“How did you know about that?”

“I know everything.”

“I need you to be helpful right now, Damian.”

“Educated guess.”

“Evidence?”

Damian raised an eyebrow and made a sweeping gesture to indicate Tim’s entire self: the bags that Tim knew were under his eyes, the stubble hiding the bruising on his jaw, the crumpled pile of energy drink cans surrounding his laptop, the bedhead that wasn’t bedhead because Tim hadn’t slept.

“I’m not an idiot, Drake.”

“Evidence?”

Damian’s eyes narrowed even further, but he remained seated. “Once again, I am not an idiot. You won’t avoid this conversation by goading me into a fight.”

“Fine.” Tim sank onto the bench across from Damian. “What do you want?”

“An explanation.”

“Depression,” said Tim. “Next question?”

Damian glared at him.

“What? What do you want me to do here? Recite a trauma list? You already know everything that happened to me. You are several of the things that happened to me.”

“I want to know,” Damian ground out, like it was difficult, “how you _feel_.”

“Depressed,” said Tim. “Next question?”

Damian poured himself a cup of tea, slowly, to make a point. “Maybe Grayson should hear about this.”

“No.” said Tim. “Fine. Just— fine. I can’t answer the question, okay? I don’t know how I feel either. I… I don’t feel.”

Damian set down his cup of tea.

“Missing,” Tim tried. “Empty. Flat, fake, gone. I’m just… I don’t even know what I am, but it’s not a person. Not really. I don’t feel… alive. I think I did, years ago, but I can’t remember how or what it felt like or…” Tim waved a hand, struggling to find the words he wanted. “Everybody else is— it’s like everybody else is glowing. There’s light inside them, but I’m empty, and I don’t know where my light went, or if I ever had it in the first place.”

“Glowing,” Damian repeated.

“Yeah. And I’m not.”

“Why?”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Tim snapped, annoyed. “That’s the problem. Everything is— it’s muted and slow, like I’m underwater all the time. Things happen, and I know they make me angry, but it’s  
just… it’s just the words ‘I’m angry.’ I can’t feel, and…”

“And I don’t care, sometimes,” he finished. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here, and things happen. I do what I’m supposed to do, and after that—” After that he stared at walls.

“I see.”

Tim wasn’t sure he did, but he wasn’t about to dispute it. The sooner this conversation was over, the better.

“So.” Damian prompted. “What happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said you tried. To kill you.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Tim tapped his fingers on the table for a few seconds, gathering his thoughts. “It wasn’t… what you would expect. There was just— there was awhile.”

“When?”

“When Bruce disappeared, and I told everyone he wasn’t dead, but none of you—” Tim waved a hand to cut himself off; there was no need to rehash that one. “When Bruce disappeared. Right after my dad and Conner and Stephanie and Bart and— and it was a lot, you know? And I thought… I thought it was me. Some of it was.”

“Elaborate.”

“Dad died because I was Robin. He tried to make me stop, a lot of times, but I wouldn’t. And then…” Dead. He was dead now, and he wouldn’t be if Tim had listened.

Tim straightened up and forced his tone squarely back into the matter-of-fact range. “And then I wasn’t Robin anymore”— he flipped a hand across the table at Damian, whose face had  
gone very blank— “which was great.”

Damian blinked, and in the half second, the carefully neutral expression slipped. His eyes flashed possession, fear, guilt maybe. It was hard to tell. He poured another cup of tea and slid it across the table to Tim.

“Nothing?” Tim had been sure that one would start a fight. “Okay.” He wasn’t going to talk about it anymore, not with Damian. “I thought that everything was my fault, that I ruined everything. Every…everybody. It was me.” He shook his head quickly, clearing those thoughts away. “Not that it actually was, of course. Not most of it, anyway.”

“So…?”

“So it wasn’t— it wasn’t one day, or one incident, or whatever. There was a long time where I was kind of… kind of trying.” Tim wrapped both hands around his cup of tea, even though it was too hot, and it hurt to hold them there. “I did stupid things like… like running off on missions without my gear, or without doing any research, or without a plan to get out. Little things, in the beginning. I told myself they were mistakes.”

They hadn’t been. Tim pulled back his hands. His palms had turned bright red. “I didn’t die, and I was disappointed. It got worse after I realized that.”

“Continue.”

Tim shrugged. “Three, maybe four times when I… intentionally sabotaged myself, I guess. To the point where I should have died. Never worked, obviously.”

“Why not?”

“Other people, mostly. I didn’t… anticipate anyone else coming to help.” It was an oversight, now that Tim thought back on it. Sure, he’d felt entirely alone at that point, but he hadn’t been. He should have planned around that.

Tim almost laughed at that particular train of thought— dark context for what should have been a comforting statement. He shrugged again and took a sip of tea.

“Still here. For now.”

“You concern me, Drake.”

“Uh huh.”

“Is this still a problem?”

“Sometimes,” Tim decided. “Not as much anymore but… sometimes, yeah.”

“I see.” Damian spent a few seconds looking at the ceiling. He set his tea aside carefully and crossed his arms, sighing. “I am… ashamed, sometimes.”

“Huge revelation. You? Ashamed of me? I would never have guessed.”

“Not of _you_ , idiot. Of me.”

“Oh. Uh—”

“Shut up and let me talk. I’m ashamed. I’ve done… a lot of bad things, more of them than you or anyone else know about, and some of them more recent than I would like.” He glared across the table at Tim. “You don’t get to repeat that back at me next time you feel like making a point.”

Tim held up his hands palms outward to indicate that he wouldn’t.

“The problem is that things are better now.”

“That’s a problem?”

“Yes. I just think… why do I get to be happy? When all the people I hurt or… or killed—” Damian looked up at the ceiling again and let out a breath. “They didn’t get to come back, but I did. And then I’m standing on the rooftops thinking… I already died once, and I don’t _want_ to die again. But maybe I should. It’s what I deserve.”

“Oh.” The two of them sat in silence for awhile, both staring into their tea. “So… what do we do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wait, you don’t— you don’t know?”

“I don’t know!” Damian snapped. “You’ll forgive me if I haven’t entirely discovered the secrets of the universe at age thirteen.”

“Sorry, I just… thought maybe you had something.”

“Well I don’t. I don’t know what to do.” More silence. “Glowing,” Damian repeated. “You said… other people are glowing?”

“Yeah.”

“Even me?”

“Yeah.” Even Damian. Especially Damian. That part was hard.

“I see.” Silence. “Well if I— if I have gotten better?” Damian paused, maybe waiting for Tim to contradict him. Tim nodded instead.

“You have.”

“If I have gotten better, that’s— partially— because of you. Mostly Grayson, but you did help. You were this… example of what everybody thought I should be, and I hated it until I realized they were right. Not you as a person, clearly,” Damian corrected. “I’m not touching that mess. But… you as a hero.”

“Thanks?”

“I’m saying you don’t ruin everyone. You help a lot of them. Like you helped me.”

“I guess.”

“But sometimes I still want you dead.”

Tim raised his cup of tea in a join-the-club kind of gesture, and Damian came very close to cracking a smile in response.

“Still working on that one,” he said. “You make it hard.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. So… how do I help you?”

“I guess this kind of did?” Tim said, gesturing vaguely around him. “I wouldn’t do it again, mind you, but I—” They both turned towards footsteps coming down the hallway to the kitchen. “Shit! Go.”

Damian jumped off his bench, pulled a knife from somewhere in his pajamas, and immediately launched into an angry tirade at Tim’s expense as Dick pulled open the kitchen door. He looked between the two of them— Damian aggressively gesturing with a weapon, Tim glaring back from his seat at the table— then down at his watch.

“Already?” Dick asked, then stepped backward as Damian swung around to recruit him.

“Tell Drake that it’s Batman and ROBIN, not—”

“Tell DAMIAN I’ll do whatever I want in my own home!” Tim cut in, slamming a fist down on the table.

“Oh boy,” Dick muttered. He turned around and called back down the hallway. “Hey, Bruce?”

“Bruce!” Tim yelled through the open door. “Control your spawn!”

“I will fight you _here and now, Drake_.”

“You will not!” Dick corrected. “Calm down!” He turned back to look for Bruce, and Tim took the opportunity to drop his scowl. He grabbed an empty energy drink can from his pile and hefted it at Damian with a half smile and a raised eyebrow. Damian nodded.

As Dick turned back towards them and Bruce appeared down the hall, Tim threw the can straight at Damian. It bounced off the side of his head and rolled into the hallway at Dick and Bruce’s feet.

“Tim…” Bruce growled.

“He started it,” said Tim, pointing at Damian. To be totally fair, he had.

“I don’t care who—” Bruce cut off to grab Damian’s collar as he ran past the doorway, presumably on his way to tackle Tim. He certainly was committed. Tim would give him that one.

“No.” Bruce told Damian, swinging him into the hallway behind him. “This is over. Go to your room.”

Tim flashed Damian a smug smile.

“You too,” said Bruce.

“What?”

“Go to your room. Get some sleep while you’re there.”

“What??”

“You heard me. Dick, can you—?”

Dick nodded. He put a hand on Damian’s shoulder and nudged him down the hallway, towards his bedroom. Tim could hear Damian complaining the entire way up the stairs.

Bruce pulled Tim’s laptop from the table. “Now you.”

“Fine.” Tim scooped up the rest of the cans, dumped them in the recycling bin, and held out a hand for his computer. Bruce shook his head.

“Great.” He climbed the stairs himself, passed Dick on his way back down, then stuck his head into Damian’s room. Damian was already in the process of climbing out his bedroom window.

“Thanks,” Tim told him.

Damian waved him away impatiently, then dropped down into the garden. He’d better hope Bruce didn’t see him leaving, Tim thought. He’d catch hell.

Tim shrugged and continued down the hallway to his room. Sleep didn’t sound terrible, now that he thought about it. He flicked the lights out on his way in, swept a layer of papers off his comforter, and flopped onto his bed.

It really had been helpful to talk about it. Maybe he should do that more often.

“DAMIAN!” Bruce yelled faintly, somewhere on the ground floor. Tim pulled back his curtains in time to see Damian sprint for the back gate, pulling on a backpack as he ran. Busted. Rest in peace.

He grinned and turned over, nestling into his pillow.

**Author's Note:**

> Based largely on my own experience with depression/suicidal ideation


End file.
